PSY 242 Chapter Notes - Chapter 17: Somatic Nervous System, Autonomic Nervous System, Phineas Gage
Document Summary
Chapter 17 biopsychology of emotion, stress, and health. Early landmarks in the biopsychological investigation of emotion. Phineas gage: pole lodged into brain from work accident. Personality and emotion life changed drastically: became irreverent and impulsive. Expressions of emotion evolve from behaviours that indicate what an animal is likely to do next. If the signals provided by such behaviours benefit the animal that displays them, they will evolve in ways that enhance their communicative function, and their original function may be lost. Opposite message are often signalled by opposite movements and postures, and idea called the principle of antithesis. James-lang theory: emotion-inducing sensory stimuli are received and interpreted by the cortex, which triggers changes in the visceral organs via the autonomic nervous system and in the skeletal muscles via the somatic nervous system. Then, the autonomic and somatic responses trigger the experience of emotion in the brain.
